Feedback from the Issue of Thursday, December 16, 2010

Pearce and FAIR are like devious liars: It's mind-boggling how much outright bullshit comes out of our new Arizona senate president's mouth, and now it's enlightening (not really) to find out he's not that smart, that his, um, "big ideas" are coming from right-wing extremist groups with ties to white supremacists ("FAIR-y Tales," Terry Greene Sterling, December 2).

Groups like the Federation for American Immigration Reform certainly are smart — in the sense that Adolf Hitler was smart.

Actually, they're more like devious liars who inflict their [propaganda] on an ignorant American public, one that, as your reporter noted, is too preoccupied by [its] own economic problems to take the time to research FAIR's and [state Senator] Russell Pearce's ties to the jack-booters (See this week's Bird column).

Unfortunately, this same American public is unlikely to get through your thorough tome and get the damn point. This is to say that only smart people in Phoenix will read your story end to end — and too bad they make up less than 50 percent of the voting public around here.Tom Byrnes, Phoenix

Immigrants in concentration camps? Yes, if some had their way: Before your story, I never realized how FAIR and the other fascist John Tanton organizations are behind this anti-Mexican paranoia. Yet I figured Russell Pearce was too big a dolt to come up with [SB 1070] by himself.

Remember, the Nazis once came to power in Germany because even more unscrupulous liars than Tanton's bunch demonized Jews to "[pfennig]-pinched German "Christians," who came to consider themselves the "Master Race."

There's little doubt that Pearce, and many like him across the United States, would put illegal aliens in concentration camps — with the blessing of John Tanton's cronies — if they could get away with it.Franklin Stein, Tempe

AZ law not really like California's at all: The latest lie coming from the right wing is that "several states, including California, have SB 1070-like laws on their books that are nearly identical to SB 1070."

Nothing could be further from the truth, and naked declarations, unsupported by fact or research, should be called out as the product of fools and liars.

In California, the law says police are to cooperate with Homeland Security by examining the nationality of arrested people. SB 1070 requires an inquiry into all people with whom the police have contact.

And this is where any claimed similarity ends.

None of the other provisions of SB 1070, notably those currently enjoined as unconstitutional, exist in the California code.

The right wing wants mainstream America to think Arizona's far-right leadership is in line with the rest of the country. Because they can't argue with facts, they must resort to fiction.Kit Carson, city unavailable

Rational thought has gone out the window: Amazing how the impact of racial fear can transform rational thought into magical thinking, creating almost irrefutable myths.

"Yes, the hospital emergency rooms are all filled by those people; that's why healthcare costs so much!". . . "They are taking all the jobs" . . . "If we didn't have to support them, we could balance our budget and give our millionaires another tax cut, too!" . . . "They eat bad food — though I do like those chile rellenos down at Don Pablo's, so how could I be a racist?"

The justifications are almost agonizing in their departure from reality, the defensiveness palpable as [right-wingers] cling to whatever farfetched idea will distance them from the "aliens" taking us over.

Even if they are U.S. citizens or legal migrants who create more jobs, support our economy, lessen crime, help our healthcare system, invent new technologies, pay more taxes than are spent on them.

None of this matters when their skin looks different, their music seems strange. Fear trumps reason, and reality morphs into a vision of John Waynes and Debbie Reynoldses fighting off Indians [and] preserving apple pie and the almighty U.S. dollar.

Simple, but stupidly and evilly wrong!Che Tjiwara, city unavailable

SCREWY LOUIE

No one's buying Puroll's story anymore: I have no doubt in my mind that there is something amiss in [Pinal County Deputy] Louie Puroll's story ("Whitewash," Paul Rubin, November 25). I would even be so bold as to say that he's flat-out lying.

Isn't it such a coincidence that the officer was allegedly shot just one week after the signing of SB 1070? It definitely elevated this schmuck to martyr status for those who support the bill.

There are just too many inconsistencies in Puroll's story. The ballistics do not match up with his story. Not only that, but an extensive manhunt was done to find the men who shot the officer. They never found the men or the dope they were supposedly carrying.

This incident should be under far more scrutiny than it has been under. This should not be left as a closed case. Find out what is going on, because someone here isn't telling the truth.Michele Cortijo, Phoenix

Lying about everything: Thank you, God, that Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu came to his senses and started investigating Louie Puroll ("Shooting Case Takes Another Odd Turn," Valley Fever blog, December 2), though he should open up the whole damn thing again and see if Puroll really did shoot himself, as Paul Rubin and national forensic experts suggest could have happened.